VALLEY VIEWS Valley Audubon Society Volume 35, Issue 6 March 2017

Potomac VALLEY VIEWS Valley Audubon Society Volume 35, Issue 6 March 2017 President’s Note Director’s Report by Michael Sullivan, PVAS President by Kristin Alexander, PVAS Executive Director As I write this note in late February I cannot help but notice that Welcome Erin Shaw! PVAS is very fortunate to have Erin my daffodils are ready to bloom. What are we to make of this Shaw joining the PVAS team as our new VISTA volunteer. Erin extraordinarily mild winter? During started on February 20th with VISTA training in North Carolina, a brief cold snap in December the and began her service with PVAS on February 24th. She will be temperature plummeted to a low helping PVAS build its capacity to serve youth in West Virginia of 8 degrees F at the airport in by helping with fundraising events, grants, volunteer recruitment Martinsburg, and during another and retention, membership services, and other areas. cold morning in early January it dropped to 10 degrees F. And I did Erin graduated from Shepherd University in 2014, with a notice that the Shenandoah River appeared to be frozen and quite Bachelors in Environmental Studies with a concentration in beautiful when I drove across it on Route 9 in early January. But Historic Preservation. She has been a seasonal park ranger at both mild has been the way to describe this winter. Very mild! Fort Frederick and Gambrill State Parks, and interned for the National Park Service at Glen Echo, MD, and at the Archives at Most of us are able to discern changes in the weather over the the National Conservation Training Center. short run, which prompt us to use terms like hotter, colder, wetter, and drier to describe current and recent conditions. Our memory She is of weather conditions when we were children or from earlier interested in periods in our lives can provide a reference for assessing our learning about perception of change over our lifetimes. Climate scientists are how non-profit better able to interpret patterns recorded over the long run that organizations may stretch across centuries. They are telling us now that the work – and trend in global warming that they see is unequivocal, and that we’re happy global warming is having an impact on our environment. to give her the hands-on The National Audubon Society takes the threat of global climate experience! change very seriously. Audubon’s Birds and Climate Change She’ll be Report provides a very detailed assessment of the potential working out of impact of climate change on birds. Over half of the 588 species of our new office North American birds are at risk from global warming, and 126 at the Cool are classified as climate endangered. This assessment addresses Spring Preserve climate suitability, habitat, sea level rise, migration, predation, to help keep the and competition. facility open on The National Audubon Society encourages its members to take a more regular steps to address the climate change threat in their backyards, in basis as well. their communities, in the Important Bird Areas (IBAs) near their We’re homes, and in the State Houses. Those of us concerned about looking forward global warming can become better educated on the subject and to introducing lend our support to conservation and advocacy initiatives. you to her at upcoming events and programs! We know you’ll As Rachel Carson said, “Conservation is a cause that has no end. make her feel very welcome, and we know she’ll be impressed by There is no point at which we will say our work is finished.” our dedicated members and volunteers. Potomac Valley Audubon Society is people dedicated to preserving, restoring, and enjoying the natural world through education and action. VALLEY VIEWS Volume 35, Issue 6 Purple Finch, Haemorhous purpureus By Wil Hershberger One of our most handsome feeder visitors is the Purple Finch. Males are bedecked in shades of raspberry, browns, and cream – females, and young birds of both sexes, in browns and cream. Though a year-round resident in our area, there are periods when migrants come through, descending on feeding stations in far greater numbers than at other times of the year. One of these periods is just around the corner – late March through late May. Migrating Purple Finch numbers peak around the second and third week of April and your backyard could be festooned with these gorgeous birds feasting on black-oil sunflower seeds. Amazingly, Purple Finches have not been well studied. Once a nest site is selected by the pair, usually in a conifer, the female appears to be the predominate builder of the nest. She completes the nest in about a week and begins laying 2-7 pale greenish-blue eggs that are spotted and blotched with browns and blacks near the large end of the egg. The eggs hatch in about 13 days after the last egg is laid. The young are altricial: dependent on the parents for warmth, protection, and food for several days. The young fledge at about two weeks after hatching, and look very much like females – feathered in shades of browns and cream. As noted above, young birds cannot be reliably separated as males or females. Most males develop the raspberry coloration in their third year. If you are really close to brown-plumaged birds in June through September, look at the color of the flesh at the corner of their bills (this is called the gape). If the flesh is reddish or orange, it is probably a male. Female gapes are more yellowish or yellowish-orange. Male Purple finches sing exuberant, warbling songs with rich tonal quality and a pleasing pitch. (https://macaulaylibrary. org/audio/110235) This male is singing rapidly and with wonderful buzzy glides on a spring evening close to sunset in the Adirondacks of New York state. You can hear some imitations of other birds within some of the song phrases. Here is a female Purple Finch recorded singing near Ithaca, New York by my friend Bob McGuire (http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/199027). You can also hear that she is imitating other birds, particularly an American Robin at 11 seconds. Next, this amazing recording, by my friend Martha Fischer, of a male Purple Finch, singing in Hammond Hill State Forest near Ithaca, NY, is full of mimicry (http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/54827). This male is giving notes similar to those given by Northern Cardinal, American Robin, American Goldfinch, Northern Flicker, Eastern Towhee, Tufted Titmouse, Cedar Waxwing, and Barn Swallow. No one is quite certain why these birds would go to such lengths to mimic so many Hershberger and female Purple Finch (left). Photos © Wil Male Purple Finches (above), other species, some of which they would not normally be interacting with for food or nesting sites. You can attract Purple Finches to your backyard by feeding black-oil sunflower seeds in a tube feeder, or better yet, a tray feeder. There are interesting behaviors to watch for at the feeder. Brown-plumaged birds are more often successful at displacing purple males. Perhaps females have more social status and so anything that appears to be a female gets priority. There appears to be a few levels of aggression between similarly plumaged birds. First is a horizontal posture with the neck extended and the bill pointed at the victim. This is a low aggression display. Second there is the head held high display where the aggressor holds its head high with neck extended toward the victim. This is more aggressive. Last is the bill display where the aggressor extends its body as high as possible with its bill pointed at the victim – this often leads to pecking of the victim. This is the most aggressive. With a little planning and few appropriate feeders, you too could enjoy the visual beauty and the interesting displays of Purple Finches in your backyard. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to hear some of their lovely songs as well. 2 VALLEY VIEWS Volume 35, Issue 6 PVAS Events March 8 Program Will Focus on Human-Wildlife Conflicts Our monthly program for February will feature a presentation entitled “Naughty, Naughty Monkeys: Human-Wildlife Conflict in Indonesia and Beyond.” The program will be held at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, March 8 at the Hospice of the Panhandle facility in Kearneysville. Admission is free, and everyone is welcome to attend. The speaker will be Alison Zak, PVAS AmeriCorps volunteer, who recently studied the conflict between crop-raiding monkeys and farmers in Sulawesi, Indonesia, as part of her studies for a Master’s degree in Anthropology. Her presentation will include an overview of the problem of human-wildlife conflicts, photographs from her research, and insights from interviews conducted during her fieldwork. The issue of human-wildlife conflict is complicated. Many human and wildlife populations live in increasingly overlapping habitats and may even compete for resources such as food. Certain species of primates and other wildlife share urban and agricultural spaces with people, creating conflict that is a concern for both human well-being and wildlife conservation. What if these “pests” are also endangered species? How is such conflict studied from both cultural and ecological perspectives? The Hospice facility’s address is 330 Hospice Lane, Kearneysville. The Audubon events will be held in the main meeting room of the facility’s Main Office building. There is plenty of parking at the facility. For more information go to www.potomacaudubon.org or contact Krista Hawley at [email protected] or 703-303-1026. Tree-ID Field Trip Set for March 4 PVAS will offer a winter tree-identification field trip at the Antietam National Battlefield’s Snavely Ford Trail on Saturday, March 4.

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